You don't have to form the thought "I think" in order to be thinking, on his usage. — J

I've not heard that before, that I remember. It cuts out a lot of messing about, so it is a very interesting idea.
So we can paraphrase it as "Whenever I think something, I exist", or "If I think, I exist" which certainly makes it not performative and supports the inference (provided we hold D. to a narrow interpretation of syllogism. It also cuts out Gassendi's argument about "I" and makes sense of the way that he derives the illumination by reflecting on what the demon has been doing to him, rather than what the demon is doing now. Does he need to trust his memory?

However, it is a subtle aspect of the meaning. I checked the classical Latin cogito and the entry did not clarify the point one way or the other. I don't know enough to argue about the finer points of 17th century French or Latin usage in 17th century France. Does he back his claim up?

attempting to find certainty in experience rather than what we would call analyticity. — J

Yes. Though I don't think he would have thought of it that way. Most likely, he would have thought of reason as the primary source of knowledge.

My view is that there's no reason to restrict one's actions to what can be based on certainty. — J

There's a bit of an ongoing issue about that. I prefer to insist on certainty, but alter the definition to something we can achieve - i.e. not simply the logical possibility of being wrong. People like you prefer to insist that it is not irrational to act on high probabilities. It's pretty much six of one and half a dozen of the other.

The book is so good that I'm reading it slowly, lots of notes, and have only gotten to God! Williams is quite hard on D here, as are most philosophers I've read. — J

It's wonderful to find a philosophy book that one just wants to read it slowly. Most philosophers are hard on someone who believes in God. Some people, though, suspect that he was just paying lip service.

Descartes himself dealt with a number of objections from people who pointed out that the "I" in "I think" could use a lot more specification. And there is the so-called "impersonal cogito," which considers whether it should more properly be phrased as "there is thinking going on" rather than "I think". (Williams analyzes this one at some length and believes it is an incoherent objection.) — J

I think the point is that D will be aware of his thought, but not of himself thinking it. The observing self is never part of what is observed, so it's existence is a deduction. So even on the impersonal view, D's own existence will be proved as the first next step. D's view of it is "he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind". The concepts of self-evidence and intuition are not popular in modern philosophy, mainly because they are unreliable guides to truth. (I'm sure you see the irony!).

Not that I think he is wrong. His argument is "If I convinced myself of something [or thought anything at all], then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who deliberately and constantly deceives me. In that case, I, too, undoubtedly exist, if he deceives me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I think that I am something." So, the doubter can doubt everything, but the act of doubting reveals his own existence. To put it in modern terms, asserting "I am thinking" itself proves that he exists. It is a self-confirming assertion. Compare, for example "I am here". Stanford Encyclopedia - Descartes' Epistemology (See section 4.1) attributes this view to Hintikka and discusses it more detail

However, the idea that the cogito is an inference still has supporters, who argue that D's rejection of proof by syllogism does not exclude an inference. I think this is not a strong answer - a bit like a lawyer wriggling. However, you can find a detailed discussion in the SEP article above.

I think the two most discussed views nowadays are these two - inference and performance. There are others, including Williams' own critique. Wikipedia - cogito ergo sum has objections from Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Macmurray, and Whitehead. I hope you don't mind if I refer you to Wikipedia for those.

It is possible to get lost for quite a while in this. But, however it is interpreted, what matters most is what he does with it. So I suggest you at least look at the rest of Meditation II and consider whether his process does what he needs it to do. I'll be interested to know what Williams says about this.

PS - a last point.

I appreciate the reminder from Ludwig that logical truths and their role in reasoning was a different animal, back in Descartes' time. — J

I found it hard to find the answer to the question what philosophy of mathematics Descartes might have espoused. So far as I can see, the existing orthodox philosophy centred on the idea of mathematical objects - all variants of platonism, in a way. But mathematics was in the throes of a major upheaval at the time - to which Descartes contributed. So anything is possible. But I don't see how he could align mathematics and logic without modern logic.

I put the Brother's Karamazov far above any of the influential articles we read. Is it philosophy? Arguably not. But it's lent itself to a great many philosophical treatments. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. There are some topics that benefit greatly from literature. Ethics is a prime example; Politics is another. A thumbnail sketch may be good enough for logic, but the issues in ethics really require a good imagination, so they benefit from a good story-teller. Raymon Gaita's books "The Philosopher's Dog" andin a different way, "Romulus, My Father"are a good examples. They sell well, too.

Either way, it's a thorny issue the formal solution simply obscures. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is there a formal solution to the problem of free will?

This birthed the very influential, now hegemonic "neo-liberalism;" again, probably not to its credit. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Forgive me, but, in my book, proper (i.e. traditional, socially responsible) liberalism was hi-jacked in the eighties by capitalist interests. It has very little to do with neo-liberalism.

Continental philosophy still has a fairly large effect on culture through the arts and the humanities, although the effects on some fields like Classics hardly seem to its credit — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, given that analytic philosophy has very little to say to or about the arts and humanities, that's hardly surprising. I have an impression that there's a good deal of suspicion of science, and a desire to distance philosophy from science. But, to be fair, analytic philosophy looks much more towards science than continental philosophy does. Some would say that it often approaches scientism.

One way this plays out is in the absolutely catastrophic job market for philosophy PhDs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, it's hard to sell a non-vocational qualification in the present climate of absolute obsession with The Career. But I do think we should try not to think of an educational qualification as primarily a qualification for a career. Nor is philosophy the only subject facing those issues. Fine Art and English (and languages in general) face the same issues.
Though I can't believe that students enrol for a philosophy qualification at any level expecting to get a job on the strength of it. Lots of them do other things, and, I hope, feel that they benefited from their philosophical training. When I enrolled for my Ph D, I expected to have to start a proper career when I had done the three years' residency. I was not at all sure that I even wanted a job in academia and getting an offer was quite a surprise.

What if he didn't drop the bomb and Japan surrendered after a year more of fighting? — Christoffer

That indeed is the alternative - except that it might have been more than a year, more than two - nobody knows.
I have to admit, though, that I would not have been surprised if there had been some bias on Truman's part in thinking it more important to save American lives that Japanese. It is more or less unthinkable that he would even contemplate no bomb and a higher American than Japanese body count, just in order to keep the overall numbers down.
Remember also the shock and fury at Pearl Harbour. Revenge is a disreputable motivation, but real, nonetheless.

We would essentially need a massive catastrophe due to climate change before we can build a world that is ecologically sound and rational. The world seems to not be able to do this on its own. — Christoffer

I think we need more than that. I think we need everyone, everywhere, to fear the effects of climate change on themselves and/or their families. Altruism won't carry normal people through the enormous adjustments (many of them reductions) in living standards that will be necessary. At the moment, there's an illusion that life can carry on as normal with a few technical adjustments to energy policy. People will do it for themselves, but not for people who are thousands of miles away.
Sounder and more rational is possible. Sound and rational, for me, is pie in the sky.

He also wasn't responsible for how nukes were to be used, as demonstrated by the scene with Truman. — Christoffer

Quite so. Truman's decision is not standing up well to the scrutiny of history. But he was balancing the destruction of dropping the bomb (and no-one really knew what would happen) with the destruction of fighting through to Japan the hard way. (Just as you describe.) No doubt he had a bias in favour of saving American lives. I don't say he was right. But I'm not at all sure he was wrong. It's all much easier from an arm-chair and with hindsight.

So, destruction, just like Shiva's role, is both an end and a beginning. Shiva both destroys and creates. — Christoffer

That's true. But can we ever calculate that the creation balances the destuction, morally speaking? If only there were a way of ensuring that no-one will use that thought to justify some total horror in the future. I wouldn't trust any human being with that decision. If it has to happen, let it happen without, or in spite of, human agency.

And it's why people now fear that when the last of the witnesses of that event in history dies, we will see a rise in new atrocities and conflicts because people's minds again start to build up an unhealthy ecosystem of thought. — Christoffer

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. But it seems that people are beginning to think that it is OK to threaten it. I suspect that complacency is a factor, but miscalculation is all too easy, so I'm not at all secure about it.

Indeed, he says that the evil demon could make us wrong even about "2+2 = 4". Would he agree, then, that his methodical doubt should exempt logical truths? Evidently not. "I think," for Descartes, has a certainty and an incorrigibility that "LNC" does not. — J

I have only just discovered this message of yours. It certainly changes things a lot. It shows how easy it is to get things wrong if you don't read the text again from time to time.
I think we need to remember that in Descartes's time, the idea that logic was the foundation of mathematics was far in the future. He would have seen the LNC and the cogito as a different category from mathematical truths. I really don't know what the ideas were at the time.

As I think Ludwig is suggesting my point was that any discourse which purported to deny the LNC must necessarily be involved in an incoherent performative contradiction because to do so would undermine discourse itself. — Janus

If we see the LNC and the Law of Excluded Middle as both undermining the possibility of making an assertion, then the cogito will fit beside them, because it is validated in the act of asserting it. I don't recall any commentary that takes on board his inclusion of mathematical truths in his methodical doubt.
Perhaps @J could check Williams' book and see what he says?

I don't see people as living wholly within the empirical world. As Sellars pointed out we live with both the scientific images and the manifest images of the world, or within the space of causes and the space of reasons. The latter cannot be understood (parsimoniously at least) solely in terms of causes. — Janus

I wouldn't say that people live wholly in the empirical world. That thought was badly expressed. I wouldn't disagree with Sellars.

Despite all the talk of rigour, logic, clarity, and convergence, Williamson’s piece is fundamentally rhetorical:
— Banno
If "rhetorical" is taken as the alternative to "argumentative," then yes. But rhetoric often gets rejected as not philosophy at all -- and sometimes for good reason. W's paper is very clearly philosophy. — J

I don't disagree with you. But I would go much further. We warp our understanding of philosophy by thinking that rhetoric is something that can be removed from our use of language, like cutting out the rotten bits of an apple. Rhetoric is often assumed to be an optional strategy, mostly relied on by those who do not have good arguments. Argumentation is not an alternative to rhetoric. When arguments are presented to an audience/readership, it is an attempt to persuade and consequently rhetoric. Much of what is labelled rhetoric is not an alternative to argumentation, it is simply bad argumentation.

Rhetoric covers a wide range of facets of writing. Good writing always invoves these as well. It's a cliche, that when we dress, we never simply cover our nakedness or announce our membership of some social group. Whether we intend to or not, we give an impression of the kind of person we are how we are feeling and much else. So we think about the effect we will have on people and dress accordingly. It's no different with language.

This post is intended to draw your attention, not necessarily to persuade you. But it is not difficult to see it in whatever you read, if you look for it. After a while, you can see the rhetoric in any writing - including the writing of whatever brilliant philosophers you love most.

Consider this from Williamson's last paragraph. He is talking about Dummett:-

But when participants in a debate are allowed to throw out both (Sc. the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle simultaneously, methodological alarm bells should ring

So he is representing the debate as something like a boxing match. When a foul is committed the referee stops the match and makes the participants start again. That's not even possible in a philosophical discussion. If Dummett has committed a foul, someone will likely call him out and he will either accept the criticism and take the remark back or not. There's no referee. Why does he present things in this way?

The argumentation is not at issue here. It's about the way that (professional) philosophy works.

Agreeing to disagree about Descartes' project is almost a sure sign of philosophical maturity! :smile: — J

I hope, at my age, I can at least claim to something like philosophical maturity!

I'd thought we could focus more on why Descartes chose methodical doubt as a way to establish certainty. But given the many objections you raise, and given your honesty that you're not really open to the idea that there could be a sound basis for it, I'm fine with letting it go. — J

I'm not saying I couldn't be convinced. The core of the problem is that, so far as I can see, Descartes has little or nothing to tell us about what he means by "methodical doubt", so it looks as if he thought it was obvious. His astonishment that people took the idea of doubting everything more seriously than he intended shows, I would say, that he hadn't thought it through very much.

This is the only one of your objections I'd really want to push back on. I'm having trouble seeing why Descartes doesn't have a legitimate theoretical context. Maybe you can give an example of a theoretical context where "questioning one's data . . ." etc. does make sense? — J

That's fair enough. I have elaborated, or even qualified, my objection in my previous message. Here it is again:-

Reviewing one's assumptions is not a bad idea. Copernicus reviewed the assumption that the earth was the centre of the universe. Kepler reviewed the assumption that the planets moved in circles. Newton reviewed the assumption that different physical laws applied to the stars and the earth. In addition Euclid's geometry was a great success. It started from a few definitions and axioms and drew a whole world from it. Descartes is following success and taking it further. But that's where the problems arise. So, to question axioms with theoretical doubts in a theoretical context is a good thing (provided it is not over-done!). But Descartes doesn't set up a theoretical context that gives sense and meaning (and so the possibility of resolving things) to his doubts. — Ludwig V

If you consider these cases, you can see that the theoretical context includes ways of questioning axioms, replacing them with others and methods of working through the consequences and proving the results. (Essentially, mathematical workings to draw out the implications of the data and prove that the new model made better predications that the orthodox ideas.) You could argue that in following the mathematical format, that is what he is trying to do. But the format does not work in the context of this project. One obvious problem is that the data is not systematically organized or in a format that allows mathematical methods to be applied. The other is that the assumption that all knowledge can be turned into a single comprehensive logical structure is, to put it politely, a massive task with no guarantee of success. (Bear in mind, here, that the new science (with Descartes' help) decided to exclude anything that could not be handled mathematically, such as colours and sounds, not to mention emotions and values. But those are part of what he is now taking on.)
Perhaps looking at his constructive phase - the cogito and what follows will make this clearer.

This is another, separate question, also interesting. I assume you don't think Descartes was successful in raising his methodical doubt, given your objections to the method. But are you saying that he failed to set the doubts to rest on his own terms? -- that is, allowing for the purpose of argument that real doubts were raised, are you saying he failed to allay them in the ways he believed he had? — J

That's not just my opinion, There is a raft of issues about the cogito. I think we may be about to move on. I'll need to remind myself about all that, so it may take a little while.

Oh no worries. Just checking to make sure you didn't really believe it was that simple! :wink: — J

I'm glad of that. This medium is not kind to subtleties that can easily be conveyed in actual conversation. There was no way that I could inflect my voice or face to say - don't take this too seriously. I'm not adept with smileys.

We need code enforcement, but we need all the rest. And so do code enforcers. — Fire Ologist

I have no problem with the code on this (or other) forums. But laying down, and enforcing a code on philosophy as such seems like a futile project.

Think of it this way. One cannot legislate for language. What determines the language is the continuous use of the language and the consensus of users determines what works. (Yes, there are exceptions in France and Sweden. But those systems depend on acceptance and application of the code.)

Philosophers are a big enough and disparate enough community to make observation and enforcement of a code very difficult to impossible. In the end, what gets accepted by philosophers is what philosophy is. Yes, there are social forces at work here as well as the core reading and responding to texts. They may pollute the ideal, but one must acknowledge their existence.

Can you keep open the possibility that he is simply not "doubting things" in the ordinary way, and that there's method to his madness? — J

I can see that he has thought about what he is doing, and is not just doing it for entertainment or on some other impulse. But I can't pretend, to myself or you, that I think there is a sound basis for the project in what he says.
Reviewing one's assumptions is not a bad idea. Copernicus reviewed the assumption that the earth was the centre of the universe. Kepler reviewed the assumption that the planets moved in circles. Newton reviewed the assumption that different physical laws applied to the stars and the earth. In addition Euclid's geometry was a great success. It started from a few definitions and axioms and drew a whole world from it. Descartes is following success and taking it further. But that's where the problems arise. So, to question axioms with theoretical doubts in a theoretical context is a good thing (provided it is not over-done!). But Descartes doesn't set up a theoretical context that gives sense and meaning (and so the possibility of resolving things) to his doubts.
However, there's no problem about agreeing to disagree and moving on to other things. That's a perfectly normal thing to do in conversations like this. Is that what you had in mind?

Not Descartes! He insists on this. As discussed above, he is interested in what is possible, not actual. — J

I get that. But I don't think it defuses very much of what I've been banging on about. If he is prepared to believe in the possibility of the evil demon, his concept of possibility is much more elastic than mine. In the context of a pscychiatric assessment, that could count as evidence of losing touch with reality. But he has invoked "methodical", so I suppose he gets a pass.

It is possible, then, that I am something quite other than what I appear to myself to be, and only imagining the reality I experience. — J

There is a difficult argument here about how "other" you can be and still be yourself. You might have been born in a very different environment and grown up as a very different person - so different that you would not have been the person that you are. Where's that line? Hard to say, but it exists.
Again, if you opened up that discussion in a psychiatric consultation, you would have some explaining to do. But again "methodical" gets you a pass.

It's the "pre-emptive skepticism" idea again. — J

I can understand that. We can assess it, then, by considering how far he set these doubts to rest. Sadly, that was not very far. We might point out that it did provoke a good deal of serious philosophical thought about how to meet the challenge. Which is a success of a sort.

you're just saying that Descartes is over-scrupulous or too imaginative. — J

Perhaps. It is possible to be so scrupulous that you prevent yourself from achieving what you want to achieve. It is also possible to be so imaginative that you lose touch with reality.

It occurs to me that maybe the best way to do this is for you to say why Methodical Doubt is a "wrong idea." That way I could try to articulate what I understand as Descartes' reasons so as to address your points specifically, rather than just paraphrase the Discourse and Meditations. — J

If a quotation from the texts answers my objection, there's nothing wrong with quoting it.
But here is my attempt to rationalize the arguments I've put into a single, possibly coherent statement. But I haven't tried to re-state them. I'm assuming you can remember what they were. There's not an awful lot of text, so you should be able to find the relevant parts of my messages if your memory lets you down:-

What does “methodical” doubt mean (other than as a get-out-of-jail-free card)?
Questioning one’s data, axioms, assumptions in a theoretical context is fine. The context limits the corrosion and ensures that there are ways to distinguish true from false. But without context, one just gets universal corrosion.

Can one choose to doubt (or believe)?
One cannot doubt or believe to order. What gives rise to doubt or belief is evidence. Doubt and belief that is not based on, or at least open to the effects of, evidence is irrational.

The demon
This isn’t really an argument, but more of a way of making it easier to apply radical doubt more widely. In any normal situation it would be a paranoid fantasy, but so it’s as well that it doesn’t really affect the argument.

What can he not doubt at all?
He mentions that he is certain of his own sanity. His expresses concerns about his own memory but believes he has a way of relying on it.
He doesn’t mention reason (law of excluded middle and non-contradiction), his knowledge of language or his pen and paper or the existence of his future readers. Doubting any of these would wreck the project.

The Argument from Experience
He says he has been deceived by his senses, so he will mistrust all sense-experience. He also says he has been deceived in a dream, so he does not know he is not dreaming now.
Doubting some sense-experience makes sense, but not the whole class. It is more accurate to say that our experience (senses or dreams) does not prove that everything is doubtful, but that we can tell true from false.
Wittgenstein’s concept of hinge propositions and Moore's common sense fits here. Hinge propositions are (mostly empirical) propositions that are so deeply embedded in the network of our understanding that they cannot be coherently doubted without demolishing the possibility of ever knowing anything.

Doubt and Possibility.
There seems to be an assumption that if a proposition is contingent, it is possible that it is false, which means that it cannot becertain and can be doubted. This leaves Descartes with an impossibly strict criterion for indubitablity.
But the argument is invalid. It doesn’t follow from the fact that p is possible that p is true. Logical possibility does not amount to doubt or even uncertainty.

That's clever, but I hope you acknowledge that both those characterizations of the founders are highly debatable. If Descartes really "showed that it is not possible to know anything," why has that conclusion not won universal acceptance? — J

It is a serious distortion of what Descartes actually said. I was thinking more of his effect on generations of philosophers after him. Perhaps the failure of his constructive phase is, in a way, not his fault. But it was a serious failure, at least for philosophy. Ordinary life, of course, has muddled on as usual. But that's part of my complaint.
My parents had a phrase "that's clever-clever" which they frequently applied to me in my teens. It meant something like "clever and annoying" or "clever on the surface but pointless when you think about it". It applies to this paragraph. I should have deleted it rather than posting it.

Are there facts about what is useful, or is it just a matter of taste? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that there are facts about what is useful, but that they are contextual, not absolute.

Is "the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven," and is "nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

My answers are "yes" and "needs clarification".

.....more information helps ground practical judgement is at odds with the idea that they are afactual. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's true. But there is no problem about that. Practical judgement is a combination of values, desires and facts. That's what makes it practical. Values and desires are not facts, because they are neither true nor false.

So, when Rorty debates Eco, he wants to say that what a screwdriver is doesn't necessitate (or even "suggest") how we use it, since we could just as well use it to scratch our ear as turn a screw, and yet in an obvious sense this isn't so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't see a problem. A screwdriver has a standard use, which is what is designed for; but it can be used in many different, non-standard, ways. We could call this improvisation, but Derrida has a splendid term for it - bricolage.

A razor sharp hunting knife is not a good toy to throw into a baby's crib (at the very least, for the baby) because of what both are, and this is true across all cultural boundaries and seems that it must be true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. But I'm not sure how you interpret that in the terms of the philosophical arguments.

Hume says quite straightforwardly that reason can never motivate action, full stop. — Count Timothy von Icarus

He does indeed. "Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions." One assumes that he is not deducing the "ought" from the "is". But Aristotle said it first, in the Nicomachaean Ethics, I think Bk. VI. Actually, he said "Reason by itself moves nothing." Not quite the same, but close enough to suspect an ancestral relationship with Hume's remark. (Aristotle goes on to construct the practical syllogism to explain the rational basis for action. Nobody has improved on it, but then nobody has explained how it moves us.)

So it doesn't deny that we might desire truth to attain some other means, but it does deny a rational appetite to know truth of itself that is a part of reason. IDK, this seems to be all over modern anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

H'm. I take this as about the distinction between wanting something for the sake of something else "external" to it and wanting that thing for it's own sake. The difference between playing music to entertain people in order to earn money and playing music for it's own sake - no ulterior motive; ("For pleasure would not count as an ulterior (or external) motive).
It's curious that you call the latter ("for its own sake") a rational appetite, when the point is that it has no external ground or purpose, whereas playing music for money does, and therefore has a reason, so is clearly rational. Can you help me?

Nor can Hume just say, "but people just possess a sentiment for goodness itself," because this would obviously imply that there is something, goodness, to have an appetite for, which is distinct from people's other sentiments, which is at odds with the entire thesis. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think that's a problem. What "useful" means depends entirely on the context - it isn't a property in its own right, capable of applying to something independently of other properties; it applies to something in virtue of some other properties or qualities that the something has or doesn't have. Similarly, what's good depends entirely on the context.

They don't, and I'm not sure how you read that as a denial of the existence of the field of ethics. Rather, the denial is that ethics has any real subject matter outside opinion and illusory judgement. It is just taste and emotional sentiment. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, I see. I'm sorry that I misread you. Though, I'm sure you will agree that they would not necessarily describe what they are denying in that way.

"And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther." is not a philosophical resolution of skepticism. The anguished skeptic can just say: "well it still bothers me." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, it is not. But then, Hume's point is that there is no philosophical resolution of scepticism. The reason he is not bothered by that is that he thinks it has no point, no consequences. Life goes on, just as usual. Essentially, that's his point about induction. There is no justification that reason can supply, so we will continue to rely on it, just as we have always done. It's not as if there is a useful alternative. He's not wrong, IMO.

Arguably, Hume might not contradict himself, if we take his "grounding in sentiment" to be purely descriptive. But then he hasn't done anything to ground morality either, and hasn't justified a move from moral nihilism the way he claims he has. So it's a sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't remember the texts (not Hume, and not Macintyre, either.) enough to engage with this properly. You are right that if his theory is purely descriptive, then it cannot justify ("ground") morality. Perhaps Hume thinks that the fact that we do value the things that we value is all the ground we need? Or perhaps he is thinking of the issue in the same way as he thinks of the philosophical sceptic. The arguments may be impeccable, but they won't make any difference - we shall continue to value the things that we value. However, while we can comfortably let philosophical sceptics moulder in their prison, it is harder to ignore the moral nihilist who ignores the moral rules.
I did, a little while ago, look at his argument about miracles. There, he uses as his final court of appeal "universal agreement" about various things. That does seem a bit of a broken reed, particular when "universal" means "people like me". That is a real weakness. But philosophers do tend to refer to a "we" that believes or does, this and that. I've never been happy with that, but it is almost impossible not to rely on it without awkward and long-winded circumlocutions.

Logicians and philosophers now look to see both where formal systems can display the structure of natural languages, and were aspects of natural languages can suggest ways to develop new approaches within logic. — Banno

Thanks for the explanation. It would seem that there has been considerable progress on this issue since the bad old days.

I don't want to disrupt the discussion that is actually going on here. I hope that it is possible to ask a question in the margins, as it were, without doing so.

The present state of play, so far as I can make out, has the philosophers working in these areas developing a variety of formal systems that are able to translate an ever-increasing range of the aspects of natural language. — Banno

If I remember right, the original philosophical reason for the "translation" into logic was to clarify natural language, so that at least some philosophical problems could be resolved or dissolved. The other (possibly philosophical) project was the attempt to provide a foundation for mathematics. But I had the impression that both projects were abandoned, though to be honest I have forgotten exactly what the reasons were. My question is simply what is the aim of the translation project now? Is it the same, or something different?

But we can instead say, "This is why Descartes is a great philosopher, not just an interesting one. He believed he had found a whole new and important use for doubt, one that is precisely not its ordinary use. And the ramifications of his idea were so provocative that we've been discussing it ever since!" — J

Certainly we can say that. My arguing that he is wrong does not mean that I don't think he is a great philosopher (though it might mean that I think he is an even greater mathematician/physicist). His achivement is that he came up with a really interesting wrong idea - so interesting that it has dominated Western philosophy for over three hundred years. If I could achieve anything even close to that, I would be very pleased with myself.

Again, we'd need to really dig in to his reasons for "inventing" Methodical Doubt, and what he hoped it could accomplish. I'm willing, if you like. — J

OK. Hit me.
Lee Braver wrote a book called "Groundless Grounds" in which he argues that Wittgenstein and Heidegger both argue that a key part of their very different projects was to return philosophy from its obsession with the theoretical and derive its understanding from everyday life. I'm not scholar enough to know for sure, but I think he makes a very good case. That's why I'm going on about it.

He says he's been misled in a dream --and not known it at the time -- to such an extent that he thinks we have to take the possibility as real. But remember, the question is not "Did it happen?" but "Could it happen?" — J

Yes, he has been misled by a dream. But when he woke up, he realised the truth. It's that insistence on being absolutely certain now that creates much of the problem. These philosophers have no patience!
Suppose he told us that he dreamt he was an astronaut and flew to Mars last night. Are we to think it could have happened? And isn't the fact that it couldn't have happened the key reason why he, and we, are so sure that he dreamt it? And that is true even though it is not self-contradictory to assert that he did fly to Mars last night.

Of course you may feel it simply could not (sc. happen), but that's disagreeing about a result concerning what can be doubted, not the method itself. — J

In a way, you are right. I wouldn't seriously question the idea that, in a specific context, it might be helpful to re-examine one's assumptions. But Descartes' project is removed from any specific context, and it's target is everything he, and we, think we know. That's a very different kettle of fish - and that grandiose aim, to criticize everything is a typical philosophical over-reach.

People forget that something can be possible and not the case. It was possible that my parents might have lived to be a hundred years old. Yet I know that they didn't. Earlier, I gave as an example of something that is certain "I have two hands". That comes from G.E. Moore and Wittgenstein discusses it. It is a contingent statement, so it is, in theory, possible that I do not have two hands. But if I consider the idea carefully, it makes no sense; there is not the remotest actual argument for supposing that I do not have two hands.

Yes! That's why Descartes is so concerned to win back all (or most) of the territory he concedes as uncertain. He uses doubt to demonstrate, in the end, a method by which we can learn what is certain. — J

There are two moments in his project. Creating the doubt, and resolving it. I may be questioning the creation process, but, in a way, I am already participating in his project. There is another line available, which is to accept his project, and consider whether his retrieval is successful. Unfortunately, there is another vast literature on that. What's worse is that many since then have tried to rescue the situation. No-one's really put the issue to bed. It would seem that he achieved too much in the first phase and not enough in the second.
Of course, that may be because it has now become a standard exercise - no, initiation - for those beginning philosophy; no-one else, except Socrates, has achieved that. The two of them constitute the founding myths of philosophy. That's paradoxical, in a way; one of the founders of philosophy discovered that he knew nothing and the other unwittingly showed that it is not possible to know anything anyway. No wonder philosophy is a mess.

I think we should take Descartes at his word when he says that he does not intend "methodical doubt" to be applied in daily life. His quoted words in the letter make that pretty clear, and Williams cites a number of other instances. — J

Oh, I don't doubt his sincerity and I do take him at his word. But his move removes doubt from its usual context, and especially it's usual consequences. So it is a bit like shaking hands without touching. It's a greeting, but not a greeting. Or pulling a punch. That's what gives force to Hume's complaint that radical scepticism (not that he mentions Descartes) has no consequences. One doesn't quite know what it means.

He wants us to take methodical doubt very seriously indeed, as a method of ascertaining what might constitute certain knowledge. I called this a kind of "giving the Devil his due" skepticism; Williams calls it "pre-emptive skepticism," meaning much the same thing. Descartes wants certainty, not merely what seems overwhelmingly likely. So he's willing to make enormous concessions to what a hardened skeptic might claim. — J

Yes, in one way I understand all that. Perhaps you could think of my obstuseness as an application of his method to his method. (Oh, I do hate arguments like that. Don't take me seriously).

See what I mean?

And there are a number of modern arguments, broadly analytic or Wittgensteinian in nature, that make that case. — J

Oh, yes. We could get them out of the books and see what we think of them. But improvising on the basis of an unreliable memory is also quite fun.

It's not that "I have two hands" must be shown to be indubitable, but rather that "whatever I affirm that I perceive clearly and distinctly" is indubitable -- that is, cannot, under any circumstances, be mistaken. So, with respect, this isn't quite it: — J

Now you are switching back to wholesale undermining of an entire class. We have ways of telling when our sense our misleading us (I prefer "telling when we have misinterpreted our senses"). How else does Descartes know that he has been misled in the past? This won't do at all.

I read him as asserting what is possible, not what is the case. It's the difference between saying, "That bird could be an oriole" and "That bird is an oriole." These are both assertions; if I make the first one, it will be true if the bird could be an oriole, and false if it could not be. The second assertion says something quite different; it will be true if the bird is in fact an oriole, false if it is not. I believe the former mode is what Descartes is talking about. — J

Yes. I get that. It is a common way of presenting sceptical arguments. I'm not sure it is actually in the text. But it might be. The trouble is that the presentation usually collapses possibility into logical possibility, and establish what are now contingent statements on the basis premisses that make them all a priori or analytic (cf. Euclid or mathematics in general). But if we want to eliminate all contingent statements from our knowledge base, we'll end up in a sad state, don't you think?

It's just that, in the absence of egregious oppression and lack of quality of life, this never seems to happen. — Janus

No, it doesn't. Most people don't care much about the big picture and just want to be left in peace. True, that can be a mistake, but it seems to me that's how it is.

I think you know from past discussions that I would be the last to indulge in human exceptionalism and conclude that we are somehow more than mere animals. We are only exceptional inasmuch as we are very unusual animals. That said, there are also many other very unusual animals. — Janus

Sorry. That remark was intended in general, not in particular. I write quite quickly when I finally get to the keyboard. Sometimes I don't put things precisely enough. But I've found that if I write too slowly, I end up not writing at all.

It seems to me to be a question of what we can logically doubt, and I think the answer is 'anything that can be imagined to be false without logical contradiction'. It seems we cannot doubt the LNC itself without falling into incoherence. — Janus

There's a good point there. If Descartes does try to doubt the LNC, the project will fall apart. Same thing if he doubts his memory. He makes quite a fuss about that at the end of the first meditation.

The obverse is what we can absolutely certain of; and I think that would be only what is true by definition or according to some rule or set of rules we have accepted; i.e. tautologies and mathematics and they really tell us nothing outside of their contexts. — Janus

Yes. That's a trap. The price of absolutely certainty is paralysis in the empirical world. But perhaps we don't live in the empirical world? If we want to return to normal life (a dubious prospect, but still..) we need to re-cast this conceptual space. That's what Wittgenstein is trying to do - and, in his way, Moore.

That's the popular summary statement of emotivism: "x is good" just means "hoorah for x," and "y is bad," just means "boohoo for y." As Hamlet says, "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I have seen it expressed that way. I don't think it does more than make an interesting beginning for a theory. Hamlet's version is somewhat different. I've always wondered where it came from - Shakespeare may have thought it up himself, but it is also likely that he read it somewhere.

Wouldn't the anti-realist position rather be that nothing is truly more or less desirable, that "desirable" just means "whatever we just so happen to currently desire." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ah, I see. You are using "truly" to distinguish a realist concept from an ant-realist concept. In which case we are just talking about two concepts of desirability, and a concept is either useful or not, and never true or not. Yes. I'm dodging the question. That's because I don't know what I think (yet).

"better" just means "I prefer." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, it often means that, though, I would say, never just means that. See above.

So normally it is the claim that ends themselves cannot be judged better or worse, normally packaged with a denial of the rational appetites (the desire for truth and goodness themselves) so that even rather obvious ends like "not being lit on fire" must stem from a sort of arational sentiment/feeling (this being the result of the axiomatic the denial of rational appetites). — Count Timothy von Icarus

It all depends on what you mean by rationality. Conventional logic, as I'm sure you know, can't establish good and bad. But we can reason about good and bad, ends and means. Why would anyone want to deny that we desire truth (on the whole) and goodness (so far as we understand it)?

Hence, "truly better or worse" can still be used by some anti-realists. Different race cars can be truly better or worse; some are faster. You can have truly better or worse choices for which school you attend, which vacation you go on, etc.. It's rather the "moral good" that is denied. But the counter is that this "moral good" is incoherent, and that the topics of ethics is so bound up in practical reason as a whole that the denial of this new category doesn't actually secure anti-realism the way the anti-realist thinks it does, or at the very least is an inappropriate category for analyzing pre-Enlightenment ethics (Western and Eastern). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Now you have me puzzled. Why would anyone deny that we have a concept of morality, and of ethics?

Not wanting to endorse a position and arguing for positions that imply that self-same position are two different things, and thinkers often do both. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Sometimes, however, they do so because they think that position A does not imply position B. So I need details.

That, and that he contradicts himself in trying to have his cake and eat it too, like when he argues from an is to an ought re treating children well a few pages after arguing for the impossibility of such a move. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fascinating. Could you let me have the reference so I can look it up?

A preface. David Hume draws a sharp distinction, between what he calls Pyrrhonistic or radical scepticism and what he calls judicious scepticism. It is the former that he disapproves of. But he also thinks that judicious scepticism, which is cautious balanced judgement, is an important virtue in life. I think that's right. He doesn't mention Descartes, which is annoying, but I think that Descartes would count as a Pyrrhonistic sceptic.

Does that fit your sense of Descartes' project? — J

It fits my sense of his project. But I don't like the project.

To the first point, Bernard Williams puts it succinctly: "There is the universal possibility of illusion, and there is the possibility of universal illusion." — J

Yes, that's right. So there are two versions of what is going on. I think you will find that the distinction is often not drawn, but I may be wrong. In any case, if you (and perhaps WIlliams) grant that the project of doubting everything is incoherent, we are left with the examination of specific doubts.

The programme is to consider each of our doubts, in order to distinguish the uncertain from the certain. He needs, therefore, to exempt from scrutiny all the knowledge that enables him to distinguish between truth and falsity.
In fact, he exempts a number of other things from his examination. One of them is his own sanity - he does not think that he is an emperor. Another is that his senses do not always deceive him, though he seems to forget that in other passages.
If I asked you to believe that I am going to spend my week-end on the moon, could you do it? Or would you look for some evidence and fit your belief to the evidence? Doubting without evidence is not rational, and sticking "methodical" in front of the doubt does not make any difference to that. You could easily pretend to believe me, but somehow I don't think that's what Descartes had in mind.

He wants us to set aside our practical, moral and aesthetic concerns and think about the apple in a completely disinterested way. He does not consider that to think about the apple in that way (a theoretical stance) may be to be unable to think about the apple as we know it.

So this is not an attempt to determine what must in fact be illusory. It is not a method we take into our everyday experiences. Neither the specific nor the general sort of doubt is being asserted. At this juncture, Descartes wants to know what is possible, not what is true. His idea is that, if we can find something about which not even the possibility of doubt can be raised, we will have found a foundation upon which to build our knowledge of the world. — J

That is in interesting change. But I don't think it changes much,
In any case, the question of what is possible is not at all clear. Many people believe that it is possible that the sun will not rise tomorrow morning, simply because it is not self-contradictory to assert that it has not risen. Is it possible that I don't in fact have two hands? To put it another way, someone who thinks that it is possible that he is being duped by an evil demon has a pretty elastic sense of what is possible.
The model of mathematical knowledge, particular geometry on the moden of Euclid, is in the background here. Because of Euclid's approach, it seems that a meaning can be given to the idea of foundations of knowledge. Whatever we may say about that approach in mathematics, it does not follow that the same model will work for all knowledge, particularly if the proposal is for one system for all knowledge.
What do you mean by saying that he is not asserting his doubt? Are all his assertions in Meditation 1 not really assertions? They certainly conform to the normal requirements for asserting doubt.

So if the above sketch is on the mark, then I'd say that Descartes does not defend skepticism at all. Really, he wants to defeat it. — J

Yes, I'll give him that. The trouble is that he has discovered a methodology that runs out of control and doubts too much.

Descartes compares this to an absurd practical attitude of constant "methodical doubt" and concludes: "This is so self-evident to everyone that I’m surprised that anyone could think otherwise." — J

But all he does here is to announce that we are not supposed to take our methodical doubts seriously. Which undermines the entire project. He wants to prevent that, but all he can say is "But I never meant it that way". We need a bit more than that, don't you think?

Yes, I'm being difficult. Some readers might feel that I should be more charitable. I'm not sure about that. I don't doubt his sincerity, by the way, though some people do argue that he is insincere.

"human" should be "humanist." That is, "the bulk of non-empirical human knowledge," as in (but not exclusively) "the humanities," — Count Timothy von Icarus

He may well have had that target in his sights.

We're not really burning them, but we're downgrading them to taste and sentiment. — Count Timothy von Icarus

H'm. That is certainly what was happening, though paradoxically during the next century or so, the humanities also got elevated to the sure sign of being a civilized person - and essential for the gentry who did not need to earn their own living.

But, I am sympathetic to thinkers who say that moral ant-realism or skepticism is itself a sort of radical skepticism (i.e. not limiting it to theoretical knowledge). For one, if nothing is ever truly good, then truth cannot be truly better than falsity, "good faith" good, and so too for "good methods," or "good argument," since these all relate to ends, i.e. "the Good," "that at which all things aim." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, from the point of view of a realist, that would indeed seem to be so. But if you don't have and/or can't recognize, the Good, but, perhaps, only a range of activities and/or ends that are worthwhile in their own right, then moral anti-realism seems less like a form of scepticism. To be clear, for someone who doesn't but Aristotle's crowning of the hierarchy of purposes, or who thinks that the supposed crown is an illusion, "truly good" is just rhetorical pleonasm.

Post-Descatres, there is an extreme focus on method, while philosophy also starts to be thought of more as a "system" or "game." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Philosophers are very good at buying in to the latest intellectual developments, and, mostly, making too much of them. They usually settle down after 100 years or so.

For instance, for Bertrand Russel, Hume's case implied that "there is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Accusations of insanity are quite near the surface of philosophical argument. After all, not so long ago and during Russell's lifetime, a philosophical thesis was either true and trivial or nonsense. It was a high-stakes game. Fortunately, psychiatrists didn't buy into that mistake - they were busy making different mistakes.

The inability of the powerless to coordinate in order to restrain the powerful just might be a candidate for the major source of human misery―the central pathos of the human condition. — Janus

Yes, indeed. Though, of course, the powerful, when they are not complacent, live in fear that the powerless will get themselves together - and then they are unstoppable. Cardinal Bellamine said it best - "The voice of the people is the voice of God".

I also think humans love to pull things apart to see how they work, and then that search for constitutive function focuses on the smaller and smaller and smaller.. Both of these searches―for the greatest overarching principles and the smallest constitutive entities would seem to be impossible without symbolic language, which is probably why we don't see such concerns in other animals―and there would also seem to be a powerful element of misleading reification in both. — Janus

Yes, symbolic language is very important. But I get worried when people try to deduce that we are not animals.
Reification is a major curse for any philosopher that has an ear (eye) for language.

human cognitive system is representational, in that everything to which it is directed is mere affected senses, re: sensation, from which alone no cognition is at all possible. — Mww

I'm not sure I understand all of this. But I do agree that representing our "cognitive system" as representational does indeed set one up for scepticism about the things that are supposed to be represented. Just one more reason not to set oneself up in that way in the first place.

I'll respect your wish not to engage with Descartes at the moment, though I'd enjoy that conversation. Suffice it to say, both your questions deserve thoughtful answers. — J

I can resist anything except temptation. I would welcome reading your answers.

This is different from an approach that starts from what is known and then tries to explain a metaphysics of knowledge. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That sounds like Aristotle, and I must admit, it makes more sense to me. One must remember, however, that he is also quite content to revise the knowledge that is handed down to him when necessary
; it is not sacrosanct or immune from doubt or anything like that. In specific circumstances, questioning one's presuppositions, beginning again with a clean slate are perfectly reasonable tactics. But as an approach to all knowledge, from the beginning,.... that's a different matter.

There is also Hume's thing about consigning the bulk of human "knowledge" and past philosophy to the flames, or the unresolved problem of induction (made particularly acute by the prior move to make abstraction a sort of induction) being resolved by just playing billiards and forgetting about it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. — David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding sec. 12, pt. 3

I don't think you are being fair to him.
1. It's not the really the bulk of human knowledge that's in danger - just "divinity and metaphysics".
2. His view of abstraction is somewhat similar to his idea of induction, but lacks the problematic element of making predictions.
3. You may not like his resolution of the induction issue, but he does at least provide a candidate. Admittedly, it involves accepting that empirical observations cannot justify a generalization, but then explaining that we humans are just going to continue to rely on it, justified or not. What's wrong with that?
4. Hume's key complaint about radical, Pyrrhonic scepticism is that it makes no difference to anything. So even though it may be sound, it is of no consequence. It is for that reason that he recommends ignoring it.

So it can be said scepticism, at least in this form, is both defended insofar as it is inescapable, and, resolved insofar as it is subjected to a proper method. — Mww

I suppose so. But then, the same could be said of both Descartes and Hume who are usually considered sceptical philosophers.

I'm reading Bernard Williams' book on Descartes at the moment, — J

I've very tempted to engage with this, but I'll have to save that treat for another time. For now, let me just say that even if Cartesian scepticism has been resolved, I'm sure that people will continue to read and discuss Descartes' account, just as people still read Plato and Berkeley.

Descartes several times warns us not to take his methodical doubt as genuine doubt -- the sort of doubt it might be reasonable to have about, say, sense perceptions. — J

I'm sure it's an excellent book and people do seem to forget that quite often. But do we really understand what methodical doubt means, if it does not mean doubt? The only thing that is clear is that the normal context in which we understand what doubt is, is set aside. So what does this amount to?

Often, 'common sense' is absolute horseshit. That's why we have things like 'folk psychology' to dismiss. — AmadeusD

I would be the last person to deny that. There's a lot of it about. But it's as well to be selective in what one dismisses out of hand.

There's some argument around fear of snakes, for instance, despite the risk of snake attacks being low. That may be something in-built, as it were and not at all telling us anything about hte world. — AmadeusD

That may well be true. I put it down to the "otherness" of snakes - and spiders, especially big ones - and we are programmed to be suspicious of other, incomprehensible, creatures.

If there is a problem of perception here, it is the misperception that things consisting mostly of space cannot also be solid. — Banno

Well, I do think that, in the absence of countervailing evidence it seems natural to regard solid things as those that occupy space, just as it seems natural to suppose that the earth is flat, and static - and to wonder what it rests on.

I suspect this is only so amongst apprentices, and the occasional journeyman. — Banno

Maybe you are right. But I don't find it easy to work out in this very special environment who is apprentice and who is professor - and, as Cicero pointed out, there is nothing so absurd that some philosopher will not believe it. (I will refrain from citing examples.)

So, perhaps it's partly that the skeptical solutions are not considered acceptable, or are themselves considered to be radically skeptical. I have certainly seen philosophers say this, not only about Wittgenstein, etc., but even about Kant's attempted solution. And then Hume was self consciously riffing on ancient skepticism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You put your finger on a fascinating phenomenon. When I returned to Hume recently, I was astonished to find that he is not at all what I would consider a sceptical philosopher; then I realized that Descartes' reputation is also a complete misunderstanding, since his project was precisely to resolve the nightmare he conjures up. The same goes for others, as well. It's very confusing. Is there any philosopher since Descartes who has actually defended, as opposed to trying to resolve, scepticism? Earlier scepticism was different in that it was proposed as a basis for achieving ataraxia or apatheia and so living a happy life.

IDK, I'd love to find a good treatment of the history. My inclination is that some of the resistance might also have to do with the "thin" anthropology used in some resolutions to skepticism, which is unappealing to some. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm afraid I can't help you. By "thin" anthropology, do you mean the sketchy references to ways of life and/or evolution? It's difficult being a philosopher and wanting to take allied discussion in other departments seriously. There just isn't time. Or that's my excuse.

What lies behind the traditional philosophical denial of common sense would seem to be the assumption that this world, not being perfect, cannot be the true world. The human desire for a transcendent reality, as opposed to this "mere shadow world" has a lot to do with the desire for life to be fair―that is to punish the wicked hereafter when they elude punishment down here, and to provide us with salvation and eternal life. Most of us would rather not die; so being in denial of the fact of death is one strongly motivated strategy for coping with it. — Janus

Yes, all of that. Ethics in general, and justice in particular, is an interesting combination of incompatible desires. On the one hand, the desire of the powerless to restrain the powerful and on the other hand, the desire of the powerful to control the powerless.

given that the real nature of things in the ultimate sense that the human mind seems so addicted to entertaining is not at all decidable. — Janus

Perhaps the ability and desire to push things further is what lies behind the tendency to look for ever more ultimate ultimates and get lost, as it were, in outer space. That's one thing that I don't see in non-human animals.

I don't follow that. How does skepticism enter the picture? I took Banno to mean that we wouldn't have a reason to doubt something or find it odd unless we were used to things being a certain way. That's not meant to be skeptical doubt, I don't think. — J

I'm sure it is not meant to be traditional philosophical sceptical doubt. On the contrary, that background of certainty is what prevents it running out of control, so to speak, and becoming the radical doubt that we were all brought up to combat. I'm sorry I wasn't clear.

Part of common-sense reality is a robust confidence that we can accept it. "Reality" here refers not only to the content of whatever beliefs and perceptions we may have, but also to the efficacy of our own equipment, so to speak. I read the early Greeks as mostly questioning (not denying) the former. But there are many examples to pick from, and I shouldn't generalize. — J

Thanks for outlining how you understand the word. Generalization is indeed a tricky business. I tend to regard it with deep suspicion, especially in the context of philosophy. The disagreement about certainty and uncertainty seems to me to be a case where generalization has generated a furious and false debate. It sweeps differences aside and makes them hard to see. No, I'm not saying that all generalizations do that. I am saying that some do, and it's not helpful.
Greek philosophy has a long history and many varieties. But, according to Plato, Zeno and Parmenides did not pull their punches when discussing the reality of Being. Come to that, nor did Plato. Pyrrho and the Sceptics were, perhaps, gentler, in that they always saw both sides of the question and refused to come down on either side.

You will have noticed @Patterner's discussion of solidity earlier. I'm fascinated by the temptation (which I partly share) to deny that tables and rocks are "really" solid when the explanation actually affirms, and does not deny, that solidity is, in everday contexts, exactly what it seems to be. The same phenomenon is capable of two different and incompatible interpretations. What can we make of this?

(I would add, echoing Ryle, that, while the explanation of physics has its power and meaning, it comes to us through the perspective of ordinary, everyday reality. There should be no need for us to make a choice between the two. They are both necessary.)

Long ago, when I was philosophically active, there was a widespread opinion that scepticism was vanquished and could be put to bed (or its grave). It turns out that was not so. It seems to be still alive and kicking. Cavell was right - we need to get deeper into the phenomenon and understand better where it comes from. Part of that is noticing that Cartesian scepticism is not the only variety of scepticism, and that denial of common sense reality goes back a long way in philosophy, arguably right back to the beginning. It may be that it is an essential feature of any enquiry that we might recognize as philosophical. But it also seems to be found useful in religion - another point where religion and philosophy seem to coincide or at least to be near neighbours.

As brilliant and imaginative as many people are, I cannot imagine anyone is ever going to come up with any workable explanation for how things exist as they do if there was not coherence and predictability. If electrons did not always have negative charges. If mass did not always warp spacetime. — Patterner

Yes. We need the assumption of coherence and predictability because that's what generates our questions. I think of it as a "hinge", but more of a methodological assumption than a belief. It can't be simply empirical - what could refute it?

I'm more concerned with the definition of "solid" at the moment. The definition does not say there is no space between nucleus and electrons, between atoms, between molecules, etc. The explanation for solidity is not the somewhat vague idea probably everyone has before learning what's really going on. but when a rock is coming out your head, regardless of all that, it's best to prevent that impact. — Patterner

The explanation (analysis) of solidity is a surprise - counter-intuitive, if you like. One can see why some people want to say that solid things are not "really" solid. But everyday phenomena are not denied by the explanation - on the contrary, they are affirmed. Perhaps we need to change the definition, perhaps we don't. That's another question.

Well, we still have the unpredictability of human actions to account for. — Metaphysician Undercover

True.

The world is often not as we expect or can tell at first glance. — AmadeusD

True.

Sure, the world is sometimes not as expected. But we can see this only becasue overwhelmingly it is coherent. — Banno

True.

Our scientific view of the world allows us to predict with confidence that our views will be regularly upended by new insights and discoveries! — J

True.
I'm reminded of the difference of opinion between Heraclitus - everything changes - and Parmenides - nothing changes. Both were right. Both were wrong.
The interesting bit then was why the disagreement arose - the philosophical issues and ideas behind it.
So what lies behind the disagreement here?

The point being made is that doubt takes place against a background of certainty. — Banno

So that's Banno's diagnosis - it's about scepticism.
I'm not at all clear where other people stand. Is it about scepticism? If not, what?
The deeper question that I think we should be talking about is what lies behind the ancient philosophical tradition of denying common sense reality.

But what gives you the idea that there is such a thing?
— Ludwig V
I don't. I'm responding to the claims. — Tom Storm

Fair enough. I wasn't quite clear where you stood.

Every day there's new discoveries which defy science. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm pretty sure that every day there are more discoveries that do not defy science. But they are not so newsworthy. Your sample may be a bit biased.

I wouldn't say that this constitutes miracles, only that science doesn't really have the capacity to predict what the world will do. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know what you mean. It seems to me - but perhaps I'm naive - that the sun, the moon, and the tides are pretty much predictable. though the wind and the rain are less so. The stock in my corner shop is usually what I expect, though there are regrettable lapses. My car usually starts when I want it to; it has only let me down when I have not used it in a while, which is pretty much predictable. Football, cricket etc. matches happen when expected, though I grant you that the results are less predictable. Which number will come up in a lottery is not predictable, although we can be sure that someone will win - normally. Other gambles are also unpredictable, except that we know that the bank or the bookie will win.
Some things are predictable, some things are not, and we have pretty good knowledge of what we can predict and what we cannot. Yes, there are surprises. But mostly things rumble along pretty much as expected.

See the straight stick, see the crooked stick, trust enough on what we see, to understand what we see cannot be trusted. — Richard B

That nicely brings out the paradox in the conclusion. It's not a question of mistrusting everything we see, but of deciding what to trust. Mistrusting what you see that told you that your couldn't trust what you see is confusing.
It's the move from mistrusting what you (think you) see of the stick to mistrusting everything that you see that is the mistake. If I look at the forged money and compare it to the real money, I can conclude that some money is forged. But if I conclude that the real money might be forged as well, I've cut off the branch I'm sitting on.
It is true that each coin/note that I see could be a forgery, but it does not follow that all coins and notes might be forgeries. It it did, the distinction between real and fake money has collapsed.

My thinking is that, whatever the answers might be, they are the answer to how we come about. People say, "That steel isn't really solid. It's mostly empty space between nuclei and electrons, and the way electrons repel each other is what gives us the illusion of solidify." I say that's empty space between nuclei and electrons, and the way electrons repel each other is, is how solidity is accomplished. — Patterner

Your reply is correct. But "people" already know that. The problem is that what you take as the explanation of solidity, they take as undermining solidity. You have to show them that they have messed about with the meaning of "real". It is a mistake to allow them to get away with that, because once that's happened, there's no way back.

Appeals to the supernatural lack direct empirical exemplars; one cannot simply point to observable cases in support. Instead, such appeals often proceed obliquely, through critiques of the epistemological limits of science or argument from hallucination or the inadequacies of a materialist/naturalist ontology. The strategy tends to rely on undermining the dominant framework, entering through a kind of philosophical back door, if you'll pardon the clumsy metaphor. — Tom Storm

If you start with the idea of the supernatural, the strategy makes sense. But what gives you the idea that there is such a thing?

That's evidenced perfectly by the entire history of humanity not knowing what the fuck is going on, because it isn't as it seems. — AmadeusD

I think if you look a bit closer, you'll notice that you are only telling half the story. The people who argue that what's going on is not what it seems to be will have another explanation of what is "really" going on. Which also turns out to be false. It's been the pattern ever since records began, and likely before that. Socrates is the only person who had it right - he stopped at "we don't know".

And now we’ve stumbled upon one of the central confusions of communication: we use words like “real,” “physical,” and “objective,” without having any rock-solid idea what they refer to. They work well enough for practical purposes—don’t touch the stove, it’s matter and it’s hot. But when we slow things down and look closely, the bedrock starts to look like smoke. There is no stable ground to land on. The closer we try to get to the thing itself, the more it unravels into interpretation, probability, model, rule. — Kurt

You are right to think that it is the specialized use of "real" (and company) that is the source of the problem. But you seem to be repeating the mistake by using "rock-solid" and "bedrock" in a metaphorical way without examining what they might mean in this exotic context. You might also ask yourself whether there is really anything wrong with being good enough for practical purposes and consider whether it is your decision to "slow things down" that is the source of the trouble.

This is very sad. I only knew Vera from her posts. But I always found them worth reading. Her voice was always distinctive and, in my view, constructive. I shall miss them a great deal.

Needs to be said to me suggests a rather dramatic misreading on your part. What part of "liberalism has difficulties with thymos-phobia and logos-skepticism/phobia" suggested to you: "traditional is always good and reason is omnipotent?" was remotely on the table? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I apologize. This was carelessly and badly written. I don't see what I can do to make things right but to apologize and delete this paragraph. I hope that does something to make amends.

What epoch do you believe we would be "returning" to in that case? — Leontiskos

See above.

I thank you for your patience during our debate. I have learnt quite a lot from it, especially that I need to think through more carefully what I have been trying to say.

But I'm afraid I cannot continue any longer.

"Reasonable" as in "known as true/good by reason," or "reasonable" as in the procedural, safety-centered sense of Rawls and co.? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've developed a habit of using "reason" when I'm talking about a limited sense of reason, which has to do with truth/falsity and logic. When I'm thinking of a more expansive sense of reason - especially a sense that enables one to think carefully and coherently about values of one sort or another especially in the context of action - I use "reasonable". I started doing that so that I at least could keep straight in my mind which sense I was in at any given time.
Without prejudice to any different usage that Rawls may make of the word. Though reading some of your comments, I've wondered whether you shouldn't be developing a Greek sense of balance - it would help when considering issues of safety and such.

Why the tangent? What purpose of ours does it serve to answer such classification questions? I simply cannot afford so many new tangents every few posts. — Leontiskos

I'm simply considering your idea from various angles. I don't see a problem. Judging from your reference later on, you classify mathematical propositions as a priori. You could have just said so.

You have offered what I see as two basic responses. — Leontiskos

I'm not sure whether I completely accept your characterization. But since we seem to agree that "S implies P" is sometimes valid and sometimes not, depending what we substitute for S and P, I don't think there is any need to pursue that any further.

But if they must engage in argument to protect P from refutation, then P has already been taken to be truth-apt and decidable. — Leontiskos

... unless what is at stake is whether P is truth-apt and decidable.

Implication can be two-way, even though the various reasons will be chronologically limited. — Leontiskos

I think that means you think accept both "God validates the Christian way of life" and "The Christian way of life validates God". I'm not sure what to make of that. Intuitively, neither seems wrong. I don't see what you mean by "the various reasons will be chronologically limited".

An example of a decidable P which follows from your chosen example of the Christian way of life would be, "Creation is good," or, "Care for the widow and orphan," or, "Do not commit abortion (or else exposure of infants)," or, "Jesus was resurrected from the dead." — Leontiskos

"Creation is good" is an evaluation. I expect you are an objectivist about ethics and so would claim that the statement is true. I won't argue with you. But value statements are a distinct category from factual statements such as "God exists", so I don't see how this helps your case.
"Care for the widow and orphan" and "Do not commit abortion or exposure" are not statements of any kind; they are imperatives and not capable of truth or falsity. They don't help your case.
"Jesus was resurrected from the dead" does appear to be truth-apt and, in principle, decidable. But it is not decidable now, so it doesn't help your case.

What is happening is that you are equivocating on "ways of life." The equivocation was present even when you were talking about Wittgenstein, for even there you referred to both non-justificatory schemas and justificatory schemas as ways of life. But your chosen example of the Christian way of life certainly does validate certain propositions. — Leontiskos

I doubt if it is possible to equivocate with a phrase as ill-defined as "way of life". It's almost completely elastic and plastic.

We could simplify the story and categories a bit and just say that St. Paul encountered something which caused him to decide to abandon Judaism and embrace Christianity. Your objection is something like, "Ah, but Judaism and Christianity have a lot in common, therefore he did not abandon his way of life; he just modified it." — Leontiskos

That's not quite what I meant. I meant that he did not abandon his way of life as a human being when he abandoned his way of life as a Jew. He cannot abandon his way of life as a human being without ceasing to be a human being. It is because he did not abandon the human way of life that he could preach the Gospel and be understood.

Once tradition is considered evil and reason is considered impotent, a sort of anti-tradition revolutionary mindset is largely all that's left (along with the ascendancy of the victim). — Leontiskos

But there is a third possibility, to recognize that tradition has good and bad elements and that reason has its power, but also its limitations. Less dramatic, but much more reasonable. Sure, those who are addicted to excitement will worry about lack of "conviction", but excitement, in itself, is neither a good nor bad thing - it depends on what one gets excited about.

The discourse sets up a perspective, a world, a game, an activity, whatever we call it. The dissection pulls it apart, exposing its assumptions, underpinnings and other entrails. Perhaps you can't have one without the other, .... — Banno

I can't see why you allow the "perhaps". Socrates would not get started without Laches and Euthyphro and Alcibiades. Equally, Plato needed Socrates to get started on his journey.

If we apply this insight philosophically, we see that striving for a complete worldview may not only be impossible—it may be misguided. — Banno

I hesitate to express a view about world-views in general; it smells strongly of hubris. Perhaps one should remember that if you set out to answer all possible questions, you are likely forgetting that any worldview will generate questions of its own, so a worldview can never be complete in that sense.

You really don't have a right to an opinion until you're sure you've achieved the most charitable, satisfying reading possible. — J

I'm very sympathetic to that idea. But I don't see how one could ever be sure that one has achieved the goal and even less sure that every idea deserves the same charity. On the other hand, I don't see how one could even move towards the goal without claiming the right to opinions from the beginning; what one should not claim is the right to claim exemption from the messy business of dissection and critique.

It's a part of the story, not the whole of it. In particular that juxtaposition of a linguistic and non-linguisitic world needs some critique. The individual a and the individual constants "a" could not inhabit seperate worlds if we are going to do things with the one by using the other. — Banno

Yes, of course that's right. I was lazily using what I thought was a standard formulation. Let me try to put the point another way. A dictionary defines word in terms of other words. It is surely obvious that, if that is all there is to it, there will be a massive problem in actually using language for many of its standard purposes, such as shopping lists. Of course, Wittgenstein was right to say that ostensive defition requires an understanding of "where the word is stationed in the language", but he didn't suggest that ostensive definition didn't work, did he?

It makes no difference if we first assign names, then predicates, or if we first assign predicates and then names. — Banno

I get that. But my, possibly naive, point is that whichever we assign first, we must be assigning without the use of whichever we assign second. If we have assignd names to constants, we have something we can assign to predicates. Obviously, we cannot at the same time use predicates to assign names to constants. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, the other way round.
I had thought that the point of the concept of a rigid designator was that the assignation of names to constants was, from the logical point of view, arbitrary, so the problem didn't arise. (The causal account of naming could safely be seen as beyond the scope of formal logic.) I seem to have got that wrong.
I feel forced to a view that names and predicates require each other and so must be interdefined by a process that defines both at the same time - unless in some way the point is the structure and not the process of construction.

But your general point carries here, in that the separation between syntax and semantics in a formal logic is deceptively simple, and so somewhat unlike the semantics of a natural language. — Banno

H'm. I don't know enough logic to comment. But I would be surprised if there were no difference between formal logic and natural language in that respect. The concept of syntax (grammar) was invented long after natural languages developed - and I find it hard to believe that the latter was developed in a systematic way.

The puzzle is why the extension of "red" includes these apples and not those ones. — Banno

I agree entirely with both your points. But I don't see what the puzzle is? That could only be puzzling to someone who couldn't perceive the difference.

So if our age thinks God's existence is undecidable, then a better P for the Christian way of life would be historical, political, or ethical propositions which are thought to be decidable. — Leontiskos

That's an interesting thought. Do you have an example?

I don't follow any of that. And now you are saying, "'3 > 1' is not empirical, therefore it must be necessary [inclusive or] analytic." — Leontiskos

I'm sorry I made a mistake. I was trying to do your work for you. I should have just asked the question. Given that "3>1" is not empirical (even though it is truth-apt), how do you classify it?
I may be wrong, but I am unclear whether truth-apt (meaning true-or-false) is really applicable to propositions that are true in all possible worlds. Perhaps you can clarify that for me?

That's a perfectly valid argument, and the Christian can't say, "Oh, but ways of life are not truth-apt, so your argument is illegal. My way of life is, 'protected from refutation.' " — Leontiskos

I agree that remark would not help their case. One cannot just announce that a proposition is protected from refutation. One protects a proposition from refutation by the moves one makes in the argument. In the case you give, I would expect the Christian to reject the second premiss "God does not exist".

Nowhere have I claimed that material implication exhausts the point I am making, and therefore your point about material implication does not actually count as an objection to my thesis. — Leontiskos

I'm sorry. I was under the impression that when a philosopher uses the arrow of implication, by convention they are talking about material implication. But you are right, modus tollens etc. are much older than Frege's logic.

Here it seems that you are conceding my point. You seem to recognize that we might encounter a fact about the world (~P) which causes us to change our (S). — Leontiskos

St. Paul might be a good example. But here's a puzzle. I've got very confused about whether it is the Christian way of life that demonstrates the existence of God or God that demonstrates the Christian way of life. Perhaps even both?
But the point here is that although St. Paul did radically change his way of life, he still managed to live in the same world as the rest of us, so did not abandon large parts of the way of life he was living before his conversion.
The critical role for standard philosophy of ways of life is that they establish and enable our practices, including our ability to formulate propositions, evaluate them and so forth (and I include making judgements of value in this). St. Paul may have modified his beliefs, but the fundamental abilities were not touched. They were differently applied.

I could have more accurately said, "The point here is that if ways of life can validate propositions (facts) then they can also be invalidated by propositions." — Leontiskos

As we get deeper into this, it is necessary to question your use of "validate" here. Ways of life do not, in themselves, validate anything. They are the foundation on which we build our practices of validating things. They establish or enable those practices.
I don't question our ability to evaluate how we live and to identify room for improvement. But that ability presupposes the existence of ways of life and at least a continuity in our modification of them.

Here it seems that you are conceding my point. — Leontiskos

Partly, yes. But now I'm modifying that concession by insisting that part of the role of ways of life is beyond validation, because it is the foundation on which our practices of validation are built. (Believe it or not, this is new territory to me, and I'm thinking on my feet. So things may change.)

If having many interpretations means there is no fact of the matter, then there can be no truth for indecisive murder cases either, since interpretations vary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In some cases, like the puzzle pictures, more than one interpretation is applicable and there is no fact of the matter that will decide the issue. In those cases, it would not be wrong to say that both interpretations are true, though I would add "in a modified sense of the word". But one could also say that both interpretations are correct or satisfactory or valid. I think that accurately reflects the facts of the matter.
But in other cases, like your indecisive murder case, there is an assumption that somewhere there is a fact of the matter that will arbitrate between competing interpretations; after all the person in the dock either did, or not did not, kill the victim. (Actually, in some cases, that assumption may be false. It is not impossible for more than one person to share the guilt, and the law has devised various ways of coping with those situations.)

Truth is not a matter of interpretation―if something is true it is simply true. Beliefs are matters of interpretation. Don't conflate belief with truth and much confusion will clear up for you. — Janus

I agree with you that truth and interpretation do not sit easily together. In puzzle picture cases, I agree that it is not satisfactory to simply say that the interpretation of the picture as that of a rabbit is true, or that the interpretation as a duck is true. For me, the truth of the matter is that the picture can be interpreted both ways and even, possibly, as a collection of marks on paper.

If you want to talk about reasons to believe, then they shouldn’t be confused with logic implications. If I believe that an apple is on the table because I see an apple on the table, that doesn’t mean that there is a logic implication between my belief and my experience of the apple, — neomac

I agree with you. It's a complicated issue.

Giving an interpretation to a formal language involves assigning individuals to the individual variables (names, in a natural language) involved. a to "a", b to 'b" in the exemplary case. — Banno

Yes. But that assignment happens before the assignation of individuals to predicates. So, presumably, predicates can play no part in assigning individuals to individual variables. Hence only rigid designators can be used here.

Properties, or more properly predicates, are not something apart from those individuals, but sets of individuals. f={a,b,c} or whatever. — Banno

I didn't think I was questioning that.

Not sure you can seperate these. For example, Wittgenstein points out that ostension is already a part of the language. One has to understand the activity of pointing to follow a pointer. — Banno

Yes, he does. But ostensive definition was thought at one time to be the way that language reaches out from the circle of words (as in definitions) to attach to the (non-linguistic) world. Has that changed?

Well, I would first say that something which is truth-apt is not necessarily empirical. "3 > 1" is truth-apt, but not empirical, for example. But I would agree that a proposition which is truth-apt is true or false (or else capable of being true or false). — Leontiskos

Yes, I hoped you would want to add propositions like that. Do we call them necessary or analytic? Or both?

Well I think <this post> of mine is the thing we have primarily been focused on. The key idea: — Leontiskos

I don't think this is a key idea at all. It goes nowhere.
It is statements or propositions that substitute for the variables in a formula like that. You cannot substitute the Eiffel Tower for either S or P. But ways of life and practices are about what you have to know - be capable of doing - before you can make a statement, never mind draw an inference from it.
It looks like you want to substitute the Christian way of life for S and God's existence for P. Or is it the other way round? Never mind. The question that matters here is how we determine whether God exists. Until we can agree on that, there is no way an agreed conclusion can be achieved.
There is also an uncomfortable dilemma in the background. If S implies P, then we may want to establish wether S is true. Suppose we find an argument, with premisses R that implies S. Then R implies S and S implies P. It looks as if an infinite regress is looming here, with the uncomfortable result that nothing can ever be proven. The alternative is to find a starting-point. What might that be? That's what talk of ways of life and practices is about.

You seem to recognize that we might encounter a fact about the world (~P) which causes us to change our way of life (S). — Leontiskos

Yes. That was a pragmatic decision. But it's scope is limited. The idea that a fact about the world might persuade to wholesale change in our way of life misunderstands what a way of life is. But amending or revision does not seem impossible to me, though I have no idea what Wittgenstein would say about the idea.

I could have more accurately said, "The point here is that if ways of life can validate propositions (facts) then they can also be invalidated by propositions." — Leontiskos

Yes. Subject to the restriction that propositions emerge from ways of life via practices, so the changes will be changes of detail.
But it is worth remembering how much Christianity has changed in the last three hundred years. The church thought that Galilean physics was heresy, but seems to have managed to swallow it in the years since then. Evolutionary theory was thought to flatly contradict the Bible, but many Christians (but, yes, not all - far from it) have managed to swallow that as well. I'm sure you can think of other examples.

I miffed that a bit. It was actually St. Augustine writing about St. Ambrose, who practiced silent reading. Augustine found it strange. — Leontiskos

Thanks.

Saint Anselm? I'll have to google now. — Srap Tasmaner

Thanks very much. Perhaps I should have paused before posting.

St. Augustine was considered strange in that he practiced silent reading. — Leontiskos

Thanks. It's good to know I was not wrong.

But I can also appreciate more subtle conceptual or psychological analysis. If you feel like providing yours, I can try to be more specific. — neomac

I don't have one. But I did wonder about feelings like the feeling of falling, or the feeling of an insect crawling up your arm, or feeling sick (nausea) or dizzy. "Feeling" seems to cover a multitude of sins, some of which count as emotions. Feeling confident is certainly something we say, and you seem to recognize that it is not the same kind of feeling as feeling angry or happy when you call them epistemic. I don't have any intuitive understanding of that category, so I feel somewhat at sea. Oh, and by the way, when I draw a conclusion from a conclusive argument, is that also a feeling?

That's fairly persuasive as a theory of the origin of speech, but I don't think it necessarily indicates that we can't speak meaningfully while alone. The part of the motor cortex that orchestrates speech is separated from the portion that handles comprehension. It's not clear that the unity of consciousness we enjoy today is the way humans have always been. It may be that talking to ourselves has been around as long as talking to each other has. — frank

Well, there is a theory that reading in the ancient classical world was always reading out loud. Reading to oneself in sllence developed later. Sadly, I have lost my note of where I got this story. However, one can see this process at work by watching small children as they learn to read. Even it is not true, it seems to me to be a plausible myth of the origin of talking to oneself.

That's not what's private about private reference -- rather, I'm arguing that it's the independence from "triangulation" or the need to have a listener comprehend the speaker's reference. — J

Is there any reason why we can't distinguish two phases of reference? The speech act and the hearer's response, which acts as feeback to bring into line any misunderstandings.
Where speaker and hearer are one and the same person, we have, so to speak a limiting case. One of the limitations is that the tendency, over time, of language to wander from its original starting-point. A solitary speaker has, and requires, no feedback.
The involvement of other people puts a brake on this for a solitary individual. Of course wandering still occurs, but occurs as the result of many individuals communicating with others, so the changes are controlled by consensus.

We assign an interpretation to this syntax by assigning an individual to each of the individual variables, a to "a", b to "b", and so on.
So, assigning a property to an individual happens in a different part of the logic to assigning a name to an individual. — Banno

This quote from @Banno is from the other thread, explaining to me how formal logical systems are constructed. This process seems to me to assume that assigning properties to individuals presupposes the assignation of names to their references. But perhaps I have misunderstood.
Of course, that's not a problem if we are simply using natural language as opposed to constructing one. But it would be nice to be able to say that referring and describing are interdependent activities. They really need each other.
Incidentally, ostensive definition is the traditional way of escaping from the endless circle of descriptions (I believe). Wittgenstein's point about this is, as I understand it, that there is no guarantee of success. But if we can sort out misunderstandings, why do we need a guarantee of success?

I can feel more confident about the disposition of business partners to act in certain ways in certain circumstances than it is the case with those I decided not to partner with, as much as I can feel more confident about the disposition of friends or relatives to act in certain ways in certain circumstances than it is the case with those who are not my friends or relatives. — neomac

Oh, I see. Emotions = feelings. That's a new one to me.